


from your darkness

by kaermorons



Series: Geraskier Week 2020 [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Allegories for depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression, Stupid Self-Sacrificing Songmen, The smoke creature from Lost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:16:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22743880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/pseuds/kaermorons
Summary: Jaskier usually seals his healing with a kiss. Geralt isn't used to any of this.For Geraskier Week 2020 Day 4: Hurt/Comfort.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Geraskier Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1633993
Comments: 4
Kudos: 205





	from your darkness

“You’re really so dense, sometimes, Geralt.”

Geralt grumbled but didn’t rise to the bait. He focused to keep his breathing steady, as Jaskier sewed him back up like it was nothing. He kept chattering and chiding Geralt for getting in the way of those giant wyvern claws and  _ really, Geralt, they’re so large, you should have seen them coming, _ but the noise was nice and distracting from the pain of his body fighting wyvern poison.

Jaskier tied off the suture knot and bit the excess off, spitting at the healing salve he’d waxed the thread with. “Disgusting stuff.” he complained. Geralt steeled himself for what he knew was coming next.

Sudden, soft lips pressed against the clean stitches. Jaskier had gotten very, very good at patching up his Witcher over the years, even though his methods may seem unorthodox to any passersby. He’d taken to kissing the remaining wound, insisting that his ministrations helped heal things faster, and that any injury without his kiss would just be agony without it.

Geralt was certain it was all bollocks, because each kiss, each blessing for swift healing, left him aching in his heart more and more each time.

* * *

Geralt and Jaskier looked at the child in the bed. They still breathed, still blinked, but it was so slow, and the boy so pale he looked practically dead. Tear tracks had stained through the dirt on his face, and his little frame shuddered every so often with another bout of weeping. He looked exhausted, eyes and cheeks sunken.

Geralt had seen this before in the faces of men that entered battle too young, and had seen too much, lost too much, too quickly. He had seen it in the features of young women, too young to have gone gray, afraid of their husbands and fearing for their childrens’ fate. He had seen it in his own young face after arriving at Kaer Morhen, after his own mother had abandoned him to the wild.

Jaskier always looked rather nervous whenever there was a monster attacking children, but the bard barely contained his distraught emotions now. The child, the  _ victim, _ had been left alive, left with no memory of sunshine or smiles.

Geralt’s questioning of the boy had yielded no new information. This backwater town had been plagued by some soul-sucking monster that left its victims alive, but just barely. Seven had already hanged or drowned themselves, and Geralt had been contracted to fight this monster the day after the child had been found, wandering in a grassy bog and weeping.

The pair left the small hovel and walked in a tense silence back up the road. “Do you have any idea what it could be?” Jaskier asked. His voice was somber in a way Geralt couldn’t remember it being before, in all their travels and adventures.

Geralt shook his head, looking out in the direction of the marshes. “It follows no pattern of hunting, nobody could describe any common features, even the symptoms of the attacked vary from person to person. They all were left to die, in one way or another. Wasting away here or by their own hand.” Jaskier shuddered.

“How do we fight it?”

“We...are doing nothing. I...am fighting it.” Geralt grumbled, adjusting the shoulder on his pack and quickening his pace. Jaskier jogged a little to keep up.

“What if you’re left all alone out there? What if it does...that...to you?” Jaskier protested, worry seeping through his voice. There would be no song and dance at the inn tonight, like there was no song last night. Jaskier could not play to the void.

“Then I’ll survive. And I’ll come right back so you can patch me up like always.” Geralt tried his hand at a half-hearted joke, but Jaskier let out a small keen of protest.

“Geralt, I don’t...I don’t think anyone is equipped to deal with this on their own…”

Jaskier was young, he was naive, he was stupid at times, yes, but he was more wise than Geralt often gave him credit for. Even now, Geralt couldn’t find a reason to argue with the man’s logic. Those that dealt with the fallout of their attacks in solitude often made their fate in solitude. Friends and family surrounded the survivors, witnessing them as ferociously as if they were going to slip away in the mist.

“You’re not coming on this hunt, Jaskier.” Geralt said, trying to be final about it, but knowing Jaskier would be on his tail the moment he set out. The thought made him worry sharply, gnawing on the inside of his cheek to keep from pleading with the other man to stay in town.

“I can’t very well leave you to die all on your own, now, can I?”

“The monster doesn’t kill, it just wounds. It’s probably some mage’s pet, to have effects as strange as this.” Jaskier nodded, and started babbling more protests the entire way back to the inn. He would prepare for battle there, and set out at nightfall.

Dusk settled like a heavy blanket over the town. It muted every sign of life within it. Anxiety and worry flooded every inch of every house, and it gave the impression that the earth was holding its breath. Geralt’s boots crunched on early autumn leaves, and his swords clinked together on his back. He was taking both, this time, to be safe.

When he reached the bog the boy had been found in, he quieted and strained his senses in every direction, searching for a waypoint. It was quiet like a grave, or like a grave should be, in Geralt’s opinion. Jaskier’s grave would probably be a song-and-dance sort of affair, knowing the bard. The thought of the bard’s grave set irritation in his bones, and he stomped through the bog angrily. He wouldn’t let that happen anytime soon.

An uneasy feeling set upon Geralt as he edged closer to the treeline. The forest was too dark for there to be a full moon overhead. Moonlight always helped sharpen Geralt’s vision, and he should have been able to see into the trees. He held his breath, waiting.

A crunching from behind him startled him from his wary glaring, someone approaching. He whirled, hand on his blade.

“Whoa, there White Wolf. It’s just me!” Jaskier tossed his hands up in the air. He was wearing his travel clothes, what he usually wore when they were on the hunt together, the few times Geralt allowed him to accompany him. His lute had been left back at the inn, and he was alone.

“Jaskier, what the fuck are you doing here? I told you to stay at the inn!” Geralt growled, letting his risen hackles settle as he stalked toward the bard.

“Yeah, fuck that.” Jaskier shrugged, as if that was answer enough. “Couldn’t have just sat there ‘til morning when I wasn’t sure if you were alive or not. Have you started tracking it?” His eyes were bright in the moonlight. Geralt had half a mind to drag him back into town by his ear.

“I was about to.” Geralt lied. It wasn’t often that he felt out of his depth with a monster, but this worried him. “Until you crashed through the bog and woke up everything in your path.”

Jaskier laughed, loud and delighted. “The night is young, my dear Witcher! More so than yourself.” His grin was so carefree and joyful, that Geralt should have known what would happen next.

He felt a shiver at his back, and a tingle at the back of his neck. His medallion hummed sharply, but he didn’t have time before he was being thrown to the side by some massive force. His mind crossed off several things on his monster checklist. It wasn’t corporeal, or didn’t seem to be. It was magic, sure, but felt more powerful than just that. The sense he got was one of a snake, devouring.

And it looked like Jaskier was on the menu.

The man gave a surprised shout, Geralt’s name half-formed on his lips, when Geralt watched in horror as Jaskier was lifted up by whatever force had knocked him over. Tendrils of black smoke concealed whatever it was doing, but Geralt would never forget the screams.

Agony. Despair. Pain. Brokenness. Words could not describe the sound that was being pulled from Jaskier’s throat. He’d heard the man in pain before, but never, never like this. It was a wounding sound to even hear, chilling Geralt to the bone.

But he was not frozen yet.

With a roar that tore from his throat, he threw every spell he knew and hacked with his silver sword at the smoke-shape. It coiled to dodge the attacks, but Geralt felt his sword strike true, finding something solid within it. All at once, the cloud dissipated. The forest was bright again. The moon was…

The moon was showing Jaskier, crumpled to the ground, shivering and weeping.

Geralt surged forward, falling to his knees and sliding the bard up in his arms. Jaskier looked like he had one foot in death’s door, and it was all Geralt could do to hold on. The witcher was vaguely aware he was shouting Jaskier’s name, trying to get him to look  _ up, _ damnit.

Frightened, wild blue eyes found amber, shining like gems with tears still falling. “Geralt,” Jaskier sobbed, voice wrecked and broken. Geralt looked around frantically, feeling helpless. What a cruel monster.

“Jaskier, Jaskier, I’m here.” Geralt whispered, holding the shaking man close. He was cold, so cold. Jaskier was babbling nonsense in his arms. Geralt had the sinking feeling that he was losing him. “No, no, no…” Geralt moaned. He couldn’t lose the bard. He couldn’t lose his Jaskier.

In desperation, his lips found Jaskier’s head, pressing kiss after kiss upon his hair. “Please get better, please get better…” Geralt chanted, prayed. His kisses trailed everywhere, chasing tears down Jaskier’s face, over the ridge of his neck, to heal his poor voice, lifted him up and pressed kisses to Jaskier’s chest, over his heart, trying to  _ heal _ the man that had pieced him back together like a life worth saving. “I’ve got you, Jaskier, I’ve got you.”

Jaskier was quiet, hands balled in Geralt’s shirt like a lifeline. The trembling was dissipating slowly, and Geralt wildly kept pressing kisses anywhere he could, like that was the only cure he knew. He rubbed up and down Jaskier’s chilly limbs, willing life back into them like it was what he was born to do. “Not gonna let you go. Never letting you go.” Geralt promised, face buried in Jaskier’s soft-as-sin hair. Jaskier took a shuddering breath in.

“Geralt.” he whispered, awe written in his voice.

Geralt let out a wounded noise, relief flash-flooding him. “Jaskier, I’m here. I have you. Stay with me. Please stay. Please.” Geralt is sure he had never said as many kind words to the bard at once, but he could not let Jaskier have that faraway look in his eyes, could not let Jaskier forget to smile. “You can’t go. You can’t leave me. You can’t. I love you.”

Once that floodgate opened, Geralt couldn’t hold it in any longer, crushing his face into Jaskier’s neck and holding him close. Their breathing slowed together, and neither moved until the sun rose hesitantly over the horizon.

A warm hand shakily petting Geralt’s hair made him look up, eyes meeting those of the bard’s. They were full of life and gratitude and affection, lit up alongside a watery smile. Geralt held his face in his hands, grateful to even see that face once more.

“You saved me.” Jaskier rasped. “You saved me.” And Geralt nodded, thumbing over cheeks he’d longed to touch for years, tracing every curve of that beautiful face.

“You saved me first.”


End file.
